Ross Atkins hates the idea that the Blue Jays have come across as a heartless, soulless organization, callously laying off long-serving employees without reason or compassion.

The Jays general manager said he’s been hurt by accusations that the Toronto front office has been trying to establish a “new brand” in the image of the Cleveland Indians — his former organization — by laying off loyal workers, particularly in the communications, high-performance and medical departments.

One example is baseball information manager Mal Romanin, who was highly regarded by the denizens of the Blue Jays press box, including yours truly.

From a personal perspective, there was an incident this past season, when I was interviewing Jose Bautista at his stall in the Jays clubhouse and Marcus Stroman walked by and started ‘advising’ Bautista that I was “dicey” and that he’d better watch what he says because I’ll twist his words — particularly given that Bautista is a Latin player. Stroman also warned me that I would be off the beat soon and that I was “irrelevant”.

Of course, the wise guys in the press box immediately started calling me “Mr. Irrelevant” after that. Earlier, I had written a column suggesting that Stroman would be advised to rein in his emotions on the mound, especially when his frustrations were aimed at the umpires as they might have long memories and might squeeze him in future starts. Stroman obviously took exception to the column and let it be known on a number of occasions.

That day he went off in the clubhouse, Romanin immediately went over to diffuse the situation. And he did so, very professionally — even suggesting that I might have taken too much of a confrontational stance with Stroman as the argument progressed. He didn’t take sides. Simply put, Romanin was very good at his job and greatly respected by the media.

So, the question for Atkins is: “How does laying off somebody such as Romanin, along with his colleagues Erik Grosman and Sue Mallabon — all good at their jobs and loyal Jays people to the core — help the Jays win more ball games?”

On the surface, the moves come across as petty, even mean-spirited, as with the case of visiting clubhouse manager Lenny Frejlich, one of the club’s few charter employees, who was also laid off. Atkins and president Mark Shapiro came to the Jays from the Indians following the 2015 season and have been accused of wanting to mold the clubhouse in their own image, turning the Jays into the Cleveland Indians North, so to speak, bringing in cronies and getting rid of as many “old guard” employees as possible, including Romanin, Frejlich, assistant athletic trainer Mike Frostad and head strength and conditioning coordinator Chris Joyner, none of whom actually make baseball decisions or hit home runs.

Atkins said all the decisions were difficult, even agonizing. All the moves he said were made in the name of trying improve the operations of every department and simply changing with the times.

Talking to the media late in the 2017 season, Atkins alluded to communications issues in the club’s high-performance department and how he felt he let down certain players who were injured during the season, such as Aaron Sanchez and Devon Travis, citing certain “inefficiencies” in communication between himself and the high-performance department.

He also said that because the media has changed so much over the years, so too must their communications department, adding that Romanin, Grosman, Mallabon and the department’s lone survivor, Jay Stenhouse, while all good people and workers, had much the same strengths and skills.

Atkins said he didn’t make all the specific decisions as to who would go, but did sign off on them.

“Our goal is to have a values-based culture that is ultimately about creating the best environment in all of professional sport,” Atkins told the Toronto Sun. “And we have to make very difficult decisions across every aspect of baseball operations and obviously on the business side as well, that are never personal. And we are, in fact, all about making sure we’re doing everything that’s best for this organization and the people in it and unfortunately there are times in every business where change occurs and it’s very, very difficult for us by all means.”

Atkins pointed to the baseball operations department as proof that he and Shapiro are not simply trying to purge long-serving employees in order to bring in old cronies or something along those lines. He pointed out that they’ve kept several high-level Toronto baseball people from former regimes, including Tony LaCava, Andrew Tinnish and Joe Sheehan, though some responsibilities have shifted.

The best example of that is manager John Gibbons, whom many figured would be fired sooner rather than later under after Shapiro and Atkins were brought in. They basically inherited the Toronto manager. He wasn’t “their guy”. Yet, he’s still here.

“We came here with the mindset of: ‘Let’s learn about all the things that are good here. Let’s discuss with all the leaders here what our values are — and are going to be — together,’” Atkins said. “And John Gibbons was very much a part of that exercise.”

Atkins said he has actually learned something from the backlash and has taken it to heart.

“The fact that people care about people that are working (here) is a strength of this community,” he said.